Boris Johnson

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (born 19 June1964) is a British journalist and Politician, who serves as the current Mayor of London. He began his career as a trainee reporter on The Times but was sacked for making up a quote. From 1987 he worked at the Daily Telegraph where he became a leader-writer and assistant editor. He was editor of The Spectator from 1999, remaining in the job after his election in 2001 as MP for Henley until 2008. He was elected as London Mayor on 2 May 2008. Johnson is known for his unkempt appearance, effective use of humour, and eccentric approach to public life. He has attracted press interest over his private life.

Unlike the current occupant of the White House, he has no difficulty in orally extemporising a series of grammatical English sentences, each containing a main verb.

Telegraph Column, Oct 21, 2008, endorsing Barack Obama

Chinese cultural influence is virtually nil, and unlikely to increase… Indeed, high Chinese culture and art are almost all imitative of western forms: Chinese concert pianists are technically brilliant, but brilliant at Schubert and Rachmaninov. Chinese ballerinas dance to the scores of Diaghilev. The number of Chinese Nobel prizes won on home turf is zero, although there are of course legions of bright Chinese trying to escape to Stanford and Caltech… It is hard to think of a single Chinese sport at the Olympics, compared with umpteen invented by Britain, including ping-pong, I’ll have you know, which originated at upper-class dinner tables and was first called whiff-whaff. The Chinese have a script so fiendishly complicated that they cannot produce a proper keyboard for it.

Have I Got Views for You p277

The problem is not that we were once in charge, but that we are not in charge any more... Consider Uganda, pearl of Africa, as an example of the British record. … the British planted coffee and cotton and tobacco, and they were broadly right... If left to their own devices, the natives would rely on nothing but the instant carbohydrate gratification of the plantain. You never saw a place so abounding in bananas: great green barrel-sized bunches, off to be turned into matooke. Though this dish (basically fried banana) was greatly relished by Idi Amin, the colonists correctly saw that the export market was limited... The best fate for Africa would be if the old colonial powers, or their citizens, scrambled once again in her direction; on the understanding that this time they will not be asked to feel guilty.

Discussing his views on Africans and "Instant Carbohydrate Gratification" The Spectator 2 February 2002

It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving picaninnies; and one can imagine that Blair, twice victor abroad but enmired at home, is similarly seduced by foreign politeness. They say he is shortly off to the Congo. No doubt the AK47s will fall silent, and the pangas will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break out in Watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird.

Daily Telegraph 10 January 2002

The proposed ban on incitement to “religious hatred” makes no sense unless it involves a ban on the Koran itself; and that would be pretty absurd, when you consider that the Bill's intention is to fight Islamophobia.

Daily Telegraph 21 July 2005

Ok, I said to myself as I sighted the bird down the end of the gun. This time, my fine feathered friend, there is no escape.

Friends, Voters, Countrymen p59

Not even Mr Blair has been able to erode the unions conviction that we all have a “right” to a minimum wage… Both the minimum wage and the Social Charter would palpably destroy jobs.

Lend Me Your Ears p387

Labour's appalling agenda, encouraging the teaching of homosexuality in schools, and all the rest of it.

The Spectator 15 April 2000

Not only did I want Bush to win, but we threw the entire weight of The Spectator behind him.

Have I Got Views for You p272

That is the best case for Bush; that, among other things, he liberated Iraq. It is good enough for me.

But here's old Ken - he's been crass, he's been insensitive and thuggish and brutal in his language - but I don't think actually if you read what he said, although it was extraordinary and rude, I don't think he was actually anti-Semitic.

"Quotes of the Day", The Times, 18 February 2005, p. 2.

I love tennis with a passion. I challenged Boris Becker to a match once and he said he was up for it but he never called back. I bet I could make him run around.

Hickey, The Express, 21 March 2005.

I'm having Sunday lunch with my family. I'm vigorously campaigning, inculcating my children in the benefits of a Tory government.

I don't see why people are so snooty about Channel 5. It has some respectable documentaries about the Second World War. It also devotes considerable airtime to investigations into lap dancing, and other related and vital subjects.

On Campbell's negative reply to the Spectator's report that the Government had influence the Queen Mother's funeral arrangements.

Nor do I propose to defend the right to talk on a mobile while driving a car, though I don't believe that is necessarily any more dangerous than the many other risky things that people do with their free hands while driving - nose-picking, reading the paper, studying the A-Z, beating the children, and so on.

Some readers will no doubt say that a devil is inside me; and though my faith is a bit like Magic FM in the Chilterns, in that the signal comes and goes, I can only hope that isn't so.

"What's so funny about the Passion?", Daily Telegraph, 4 March 2004, p. 24.

If Amsterdam or Leningrad vie for the title of Venice of the North, then Venice - what compliment is high enough? Venice, with all her civilisation and ancient beauty, Venice with her addiction to curious aquatic means of transport, yes, my friends, Venice is the Henley of the South.

"Paying through the Doge for Europe", Daily Telegraph, 11 March 2004, p. 22.

He's lost the plot, people tell me. He's drifting rudderless in the wide Sargasso Sea of New Labour's ideological vacuum.

"Blair dead in the water? No such luck", Daily Telegraph, 29 April 2004, p. 24.

I have not had an affair with Petronella. It is complete balderdash. It is an inverted pyramid of piffle. It is all completely untrue and ludicrous conjecture. I am amazed people can write this drivel.

I'm backing David Cameron's campaign out of pure, cynical self-interest.

"Conference Diary", The Independent, 5 October 2005, p. 7.

On The 2005 Conservative Leadership Contest.

I think I was once given cocaine but I sneezed so it didn't go up my nose. In fact, it may have been icing sugar.

"Londoner's Diary", Evening Standard, 17 October 2005, p. 15.

I'm a rugby player, really, and I knew I was going to get to him, and when he was about two yards away I just put my head down. There was no malice. I was going for the ball with my head, which I understand is a legitimate move in soccer.

Thank you very much Mr Meyer, Anthony Meyer that is. I want to thank you, I want to thank the police of course, and my wife Marina and my family, and my utterly brilliant campaign team, the Conservative GLA candidates — some of whom were extremely unlucky tonight — and of course the thousands of Conservative activists, the ward captains and knocker-uppers who did such an amazing job today, and indeed yesterday, rather.

This has been a marathon election as you can tell with a record turnout and I think it has been good for politics and it has been good for London.

I want to thank Sian [Berry, Green Party] and Lindsey [German, Left List] and Alan [Craig, Christian Peoples Party] and Gerard [Batten, UKIP], who have sometimes joined us for hustings, but mainly I want to thank my two colleagues in the strange triumvirate who have been trundling around London's church halls and TV studios violently disputing the meaning of multiculturalism and the exact cost of conductors. On which point I think I'm going to declare victory.

And I want to congratulate you Brian on your great common sense and decency with which you put your case and I do hope that it is not the end of our discussions about the police.

And as for Ken, Mayor Livingstone, I think you have been a very considerable public servant and a distinguished leader of this city.

You shaped the office of mayor. You gave it national prominence and when London was attacked on 7 July 2005 you spoke for London.

And I can tell you that your courage and the sheer exuberant nerve with which you stuck it to your enemies, especially in New Labour, you have thereby earned the thanks and admiration of millions of Londoners, even if you think that they have a funny way of showing it today.

And when we have that drink together which we both so richly deserve, I hope we can discover a way in which the mayoralty can continue to benefit from your transparent love of London, a city whose energy conquered the world and which now brings the world together in one city.

I do not for one minute believe that this election shows that London has been transformed overnight into a Conservative city but I do hope it does show that the Conservatives have changed into a party that can again be trusted after 30 years with the greatest, most cosmopolitan, multi-racial generous hearted city on earth in which there are huge and growing divisions between rich and poor.

And that brings me to my final thank you which is of course to the people of London.

I would like to thank first the vast multitudes who voted against me - and I have met quite a few in the last nine months, not all of them entirely polite.

I will work flat out from now on to earn your trust and to dispel some of the myths that have been created about me.

And as for those who voted for me, I know there will be many whose pencils hovered for an instant before putting an X in my box and I will work flat out to repay and to justify your confidence.

We have a new team ready to go in to City Hall. Where there have been mistakes we will rectify them. Where there are achievements we will build on them.

Where there are neglected opportunities we will seize on them, and we will focus on the priorities of the people of London: cutting crime, improving transport, protecting green space, delivering affordable housing, giving taxpayers value for money in every one of the 32 boroughs.

And I hope that everybody who loves this city will put aside party differences to try in the making of Greater London greater still. Let's get cracking tomorrow and let's have a drink tonight.

Johnson on the possibility of a coalition after the United Kingdom general election, May 2010.

Johnson: Whatever type of Wall's sausage is contrived by this great experiment, the dominant ingredient has got to be conservatism. The meat in the sausage has got to be Conservative, I would say. With plenty of bread and other bits and pieces.

Paxman: The question is whether it's a chipolata or a Cumberland sausage, I suppose, is it?

Johnson: This is fantastic to listen to. Enough of this gastronomic metaphor!

Paxman: You started it!

Johnson: Well, I've had enough of it!

Paxman: Haven't you got a city to run?

Johnson: I have got a city to run and that's exactly the point! The government of London will carry on irrespective of the temporary difficulties in providing a national government. Thank you.

Paxman: Bye bye, Boris!

The excitement is growing so much I think the Geiger counter of Olympo-mania is going to go zoink off the scale.

On the forthcoming London Olympic Games. Daily Telegraph, 27 July 2012.

Who, according to JK Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter novels, was Harry Potter's first girlfriend? Who is the first person he kisses? That's right, Cho Chang, who is a Chinese overseas student at Hogwarts school," he said, to laughs and scattered applause. "Ladies and gents I rest my case."

Now can I ask you a question," "Why is it that we're lucky to have so many Chinese students? Is it because of the weather? Is it because we have so many French restaurants? Is it because we have so many communist bicycles?"